THE TIMESKIP
by amnothuman
Summary: For once, it's Hermione Granger traveling across alternate worlds! After accidentally duplicating herself in order to save Harry and Sirius Black, her extra has got nowhere to live in her own reality. Rated T just to be safe. Do not expect regular update.


**THE TIME-SKIP**

Disclaimer: I apologize to J.K Rowling for likely butchering her character's personalities, universe and histories. Thank you. By the way, this next part could actually be read separately from its prequel, but in case you want to, it's the story ɹoɹɹıɯ Rorrim.

* * *

CHAPTER ONE  
The Lost Years, Alter-Hermione's Lost Year 1, Lucky-Hermione's Fourth Year

* * *

Although they both lived now in the same time, alter-Hermione couldn't help but call her other self past-Hermione sometimes, mostly because they were same person, and her life was alter-Hermione's past, and what-would-have-been had she continued on that past life.

It all began but a few months ago, in their third year. In that timeline, no one had appeared from the future to rescue Harry, especially not Harry himself- because he died before he could do it. No, it had been Hermione who and gone and went, and with that, time and the universe had changed irrevocably. In this new timeline, new universe, seamlessly, Harry went back and rescued himself from the Dementor's in third year, and no one questioned how he had done so or how that was even possible when if he hadn't he would have died before he could go back to rescue himself. None of them, especially, ever suspected that there might be another Hermione, a secondary Hermione, who had willingly given up all she had for them… which was good, for the cost of breaking time and the Ministry's rules was most grievous. No one could know she had 'ever existed', so to speak, and no one could know what she had done.

And alter-Hermione was irrevocably alone, parentless, friendless, and without a penny in the world. She could not even afford to go into the Leaky Cauldron or the Alley, for fear of being recognized, at least not for long.

She had not given up at all, though, or at least not for very long. Perhaps some sort of madness had struck her now, but she had immediately went traveling out of Britain, beyond the British Ministry of Magic's jurisdiction and where it would be easy to ensure she wouldn't be caught for underage magic and get her counterpart in trouble.

Staying close by increased her chances of discovery, unfortunately, and, as a bonus, she'd always wanted to learn about the world. Out there, she could collect more knowledge than what had been available before, under a new alias, do what she could not before- albeit unfortunately mostly by thieving. It had proven an unusual test of her skills, although it had been a harsh blow to her sense of morality.

That was why, now, she was in slinking around in Africa, stealing an ancient tome. Watching the wizard guards on a small pyramid, and some curse-breakers going on to break, she cast a spell to hide herself and slunk right on past, carefully weaving herself through the protective spell-work without breaking or tripping any of it.

Something she'd been working on inventing was a pair of magical glasses that allowed the wearer to see much more than they could- to see even if they were totally blind! But unfortunately, her work was still vastly incomplete. For now, though, she wore a monocle over her eye that lit the world in bright, unusual colors that contrasted with the sand to help her see magic work. It was something she'd need going in, although she'd have few clues as to what the spells were.

Her interest in the tomb was not purely scientific; actually, she'd singled it out because she knew Voldemort and other dark wizards might want to go there. The ancient Egyptians were obsessed with life after death, and the wizarding rumor was that a tome or scroll unknown to muggles lay somewhere that contained 'secrets of death'. After some study, she decided which places were the most likely targets. This was her fourth attempt.

Crawling through a small tunnel, the girl felt a bit like a trapped rat, and one that was slowly suffocating to boot, the air choking with dust. Casting a charm, a bubble of clean air went about her head, and she immediately felt better. Staring at the labyrinth of possible paths, she turned her head and found one that descended downward highlighted with bright blue swirling. Perfect. There was some heavy magic hanging around here.

Stepping forward, she immediately regretted it as suddenly, her foot whooshed right through the ground which was illusionary. Frantically her hand swept out, and her body suddenly stopped, inches from pointed spikes upon the ground. Breathing a sigh of relief, _that was a close one, be more careful you fool._ she chided herself, and swung herself up on to the edge she'd barely managed to hold on to. Now that she knew there was one illusion, there could be more… waving her wand, she uttered several enchantments, until finally she saw the flickering ground she'd fallen through and several other places disappear, revealing a barbaric assortment of deathly spikes and knives, and even a small string that would trigger what must have once been some wooden contraption, but had since quite rotten away.

If someone was trying to deter and kill so badly, they surely had something worth keeping, she mused, and cautiously edged forward, transforming rocks into animals and other things to see what would happen as she walked along.

The paths were winding, and soon she had to choose between multiple paths again. Hoping she was not being intentionally mislead, she once more chose the most magic laden-path, and sent fake animals scurrying through.

SNAP. One created rodent gave a scream as it fell under a foul spell's fire, and its bones became twisted. Its limbs contorted in all the wrong directions, and its head folded back into herself until the spine gave in from the pressure. Other spells lashed out and rebounded off the walls, intended to leave no human sized individual a place for dodging. Shuddering, she cast a protective spell over herself and aimed to weave a 'harmless bubble' around or inside the spell work that would allow her to walk on through without triggering it.

Careful now, careful… she moved gradually, step by step, easing the bubble forward along with herself, intensely concentrating. Walking by the rat, she was relieved as it transformed back into a small rock, so she no longer had to stare at its pained expression.

There. She turned the corner, and there it was. An ancient sarcophagus, one that would possibly contained what she did seek. The witch stepped forward- and immediately stepped back as a wall of flame whooshed up before her. Swishing her wand, she lashed out at the fire and sought to part its path, but who ever had enchanted it had thought of that, as well as conjuring water, which she tried next. Choking on the smoke now, she put one hand up to her mouth and tried again, sending a cascade of dirt over it and casting a spell on herself to make normal fire harmless, though she doubted the protective spell would work. It was worth the precaution in such a situation as this, though. The fire dimmed in strength where she had damaged it, and boldly, she rushed through, jumping by as flames tried to eat at her robes and feet.

Almost recklessly she reached out her hand to commit her robbery, but paused, knowing it could be laced with curses, as well as being the wrong place. Looking about the room, she eyed gold and pottery, and amusingly clay wand-carrying servants that must have been for the afterlife. Nothing looked like it held it, though, so she turned back to the poor buried sod and levitated up the top so she could look in.

Dust wafted up, and she coughed, waving her hand to disperse it, the air beginning to get very foul. Inside was, strangely enough, a note…?

Twisting her head for a better look, not being stupid enough to touch it personally, she read it through her monocle, as in her experience glass could lessen a magic affect on sight. It read:

"Dear Fool, I hope you dearly enjoyed going through all that for nothing. The scroll belongs to me. - V"

The bloody sod. Five guesses who that was; although she was quite surprised he had enough of a sense of humor to mock his competitors. Maybe it was something he'd left when he was young- hadn't the dark lord traveled around the world learning dark magic? She really was a fool to think she could have found something he hadn't in fifty some years, she sighed.

But now to waste no time getting out of here.

* * *

Washing up, she stepped out of the bathroom and watched as a small weasel raced about, excited and spewing foul insults.

"Fuckwit, got wet and still stink!" the jarvey laughed a chittery little sound, lips curled in a menacing expression. "Stupid witch! Wasting time, where's my dinner you donkey-mother?" and suddenly, the dark furred little fellow became very contrite, eyes wide and cute as it grabbed its tail, uttering dinner with utter reverence. This, of course, did not stop it from spewing more insults.

"I think I heard a hairball midjet speaking." she pretended not to hear the jarvey, glancing around and grabbing a newspaper. "But he certainly couldn't have been asking for something."

"Earless! Smarmy!" the little ferret raged, tromping around with little black feet. "Lying pig-lover!"

"I mean," she continued, looking at her paper. "he didn't even say please, so he couldn't have been asking."

The magical weasel stilled, obviously struggling with whatever it was thinking, a miffed expression on its face. Finally, it ground out a small, whispery little noise. "Pwease? I ate all the bed bugs already."

"You are the smartest jarvey I have ever met." she smiled, tucking her chin up. "Let's get you some din. Now, what chow would-"

"Damned-noodles with idiotic gravy and mice with pig mothers!" the jarvey snarled, bouncing on to the only piece of furniture in the room, which was a small table, unless one counted the blankets on the floor as a proper bed.

"As long as you don't throw up on me." Hermione had, obviously, taken up with quite odd company as of late. Jarvey were well-regarded as foul pests or vermin, though magical in character and useful because they often preyed on gnomes. By chance she'd encountered one and had it follow her around, reveling in her awful mood and sensing it would be a fun game to taunt her while she was down- and made itself at home with her packed food. By sheer chance, she'd found that when it wanted, it could be intelligible… sort of.

"GROUND YOU INTO BEEF, FATNOSE." it screamed, taking imaginary offense to the wall and attacking it fiercely. "Your uncle was a floor!"

Grabbing a piece of tofu out of the freezer in the tiny kitchen available, she transformed it into a mouse (knowing the jarvey wouldn't know the difference), thinking about the paper. The World Quidditch Cup, it seemed like a prime target for dark wizards, and as a place she might see other witches and wizards she'd recognized- an excuse to check up on how they were doing.

When the food was prepared, she poured two bowls, leaving all the mice for her friend, Harvey the jarvey. She didn't want to ask him about a given name because it was sure to be foul if he had one, in any case, though the jarvey really wasn't that intelligent. With atrocious table manners, the feral creature splattered the meal all over, 'killing' it, then dripping in gravy went to lay down on her lap, purring.

"I just took a bath." she sighed, but scratched the little cute abomination behind the ear. The amusement value was worth it. Tonight, she'd be leaving for a new place again, and the poor company would probably be coming with.

The question of course, was where. Did she dare go to Britain? There would be a Tri-Wizard tournament going on there, it could be interesting to see them briefly, among other things… But her other could- no, would, be there.

"OUCH! Jarvey! I'm going to kill you!"

* * *

In the end, Hermione didn't go to see Quidditch. It simply wasn't her favorite sport or something that was really big on her priorities right now, or at least so she told herself. It was startling when she heard of a Death Eater attack at the World Cup, and it bothered here... And at the same time, didn't at all. They were her other-self's problem now, for technically she wasn't even supposed to exist, was she?

But what purpose did she have now? And what right does my other-self have to get to hog all the fun? a half-irrational thought went through her head, though alter-Hermione dismissed it. Her jarvey companion happily trailed after her as she made her way, briefly, to the stands.

Wistfully, she sat and gazed down at the dragon and the student fighting it below. She faintly remembered Cedric Diggory, but it was really Harry who she wanted to see, once again. Of course, he wouldn't recognize her even if he managed to catch a glimpse of her- she'd altered her appearance to resemble an old harmless woman.

Without warning, however, she heard an angry yell. Turning her head around, she was embarrassed to see Harvey being held up by none other than a very pissed off looking Draco Malfoy next to a few of his slytherin friends who were sitting down.

"You smell like ferret, babeh. Make sweet love to me." the jarvey cooed, and Hermione blanched. The situation was far worse than she'd thought.

"You sick twisted little-" the angry blonde jutted his wand against the weasel's throat threatingly.

"Come on girl, pucker up!" the jarvey made smooching sounds and laughed.

"Silencio! I don't know who found out about that incident and pulled this on me, but who ever it is will-"

"Oh, my good sir!" Hermione decided now to come in, waddling in like a very chubby and frail little lady. "I'm sorry, he's quite like that with everybody, always saying what he thinks will get a rile out of them."

"He's yours?" the young man looked dubiously at her. Then, smiling maliciously, stated. "Okay, have him." Flicking his wand, he sent the magical weasel zooming past the stands and towards the dragon pit. "Oops." he looked down, melodramatically with false innocence.

Snarling, alter-Hermione reacted before she could think to control herself. She whipped out her wand, jerking the jarvey back, and slammed Draco Malfoy to the ground on to his friends, taking his feet out from under him. "Oh, looks like you tripped!" she hummed, outstretching her arms to take Harvey.

"No pets on the stands!" sputtered Draco, picking himself up off from Crabbe, who glanced down and simply grunted. "You two, go escort it off. I shall go grab the officials." he wrinkled his nose, glaring at her as he ordered around Crabbe and Goyle. They mumbled something.

"Oh, I don't need to be escorted! But if you three fine men want to come to my house and look at my stuffed cats and collection of spiders, I would adore it! Just don't mind cousin Alrick, he's got dragon pox he does!" she cooed, and each glanced uneasily at each other.

"Um… no thank you ma'am." they glanced uneasily at one another, their training to suck up to adults to avoid uncomfortable situations coming in.

It didn't last long, though. Draco muttered 'loon' under his breath as she turned to walk away. Oh? Was that Harry going on to the stands now? Gazing softly, she paused for a moment to look at him nervously running away from the Horntail dragon and summoning his broom. Hah, good thinking Harry. Too bad she wasn't going to stick around to watch. She was going to make good on her time here and the distraction of the locals- listen to yourself, Hermione, you lived here too- live, in fact; to look at some books.

She would have to make up immensely for the fact she could no longer go to school, but thinking back, it was kind of embarrassing how little she'd needed her teachers. They would assign work, and she would do it, sometimes with questions, but even when she didn't have time to ask them they generally got done fairly well.

Although her counterpart didn't have a time turner anymore, she did- a duplicate, just like her duplicate clothes and possessions. She'd used it for studying, to acquire funds quickly by taking on simultaneous little jobs, and simply as a tool for survival- if she died before she could spin the time turner (as odd as it was) a duplicate would remain if the duplicate came to her before she started a dangerous task. She'd quickly cut back on her usage as using it required her to eat more, but it was amazing that they could give a student of all people one of these when it had so much potential for abuse. It was simply astonishing.

Now, of course, given her predicament, she wanted to know everything possible about it. Perhaps some of the books here she'd might have missed before had some answers…

* * *

Sneaking into the school was much harder than it looked. It helped that whenever she wished, she could don the guise of a student, but she would have to absolutely certain never to meet her double or anyone who had just met her double. It was better not to be seen at all.

Opening up a book for the hundredth time, she thumbed through the pages, reading rapidly. Only a little while ago, she would have scowled at the idea of anything so 'lazy' as skim reading. Now it was essential she did it like an art.

Closing it, she smiled. Ideas were swimming through her mind.

'If one goes too far back through time, it will begin to unweave itself…'

'The secrets of what happens exactly when one abuses time is a highly kept secret… suffice to say the consequences are not pleasant. They have resulted in plagues, in wars, in deaths, and people vanishing out of existence for their abuses.'

One idea, strangely, came from a muggle book. The idea that time and space were one. This made a great deal of sense to her, yet the concept of alternate time lines, alternate universes was so radical it was very hard to swallow. The idea that she had traversed them was even more so. But it was undeniably the truth- there was no other explanation as for why there were two of her now.

_And I can do it again._ an unbidden thought came before she could stop herself. No, no, what in the world would that accomplish?_ If you weren't trying to accomplish something, Hermione, you wouldn't be here._ a little voice in her head whispered. But it wasn't like she could go back to a Hermioneless reality where Harry was alive and well -

She froze, the sound of someone coming down the hall alerting her, and fled.

* * *

It was insanity.

But I'm already insane! she laughed inside to herself, holding Harvey on her shoulder who slumbered without a clue. But insanity was no excuse.

You could not deliberately decide to unwind time and space. It just wasn't done. In addition, the thing she had that would let her navigate, she hadn't been able to use it lately at all. If she made a single mistake in what she was doing, she would die. And maybe the universe would go with her too.

In her first year, she had secretly seen the Mirror of Erised, and being a child, her greatest desire had been to know how it worked. In response, it had shown her its creator making it. In hindsight, she realized now that what it had shown her was not actually her desire- it had required her to figure out for herself from what it had shown, and in some ways she still didn't fully understand it yet, though she knew the mirror could show both truth and whatever lie the user wanted to see. But because of it, she'd been able to make her own mirror, although she hadn't been able to use it much since the incident. Her greatest desire had been for the events of third year to have never have happened, to have a place in the world again.

But now she believed she could at last use it again. For with the time turner, the very blasted thing that had ironically both cursed her and saved Harry, Sirius Black's soul, and Buckbeak's life, she could now form a new desire. To use it to traverse the world to a new time and place, to cross into an alternate world, or if that did not work out, many alternate worlds. Somewhere where indeed what she had done could not only be forgotten, but never occurred in that world, perhaps. And if she was lucky, she might be able to traverse to an alternate possible world where, once Harry had been saved, Hermione Granger had vanished, and resume her life exactly the way it was again!

Thisismadnessthisismaddon'tdoit… her sane voice whispered as she took the golden hourglass from around her neck into her hands, and posed to spun it twice, thrice, a hundred times.

"Want to come along, Harvey?" she asked the jarvey, looking down into the weasel's eyes. It hesitated, understanding vaguely something grand and dangerous was undergoing here.

It slowly, hesitantly began to shake its head no, fearful… but then, too drawn to chaos and mischief despite itself, changed its mind and jumped up on to her shoulder. Never had she heard of a tame bad-mouthing weasel, but that was how it was.

Quickly she took out her green-glass mirror, (_never have I wanted something more than this...)_ as she spun the last time, and vanished.

Show me the universe!


End file.
